Known as the "Grand Central Station" of Connecticut's Underground Railroad for its concentration of outspoken abolitionists, Farmington became the temporary home of the Amistad captives after the Supreme Court freed them in March 1841. For eight months, residents including Samuel Deming and Horace Cowles housed, educated, and raised funds to return the roughly 35 surviving Mende to Sierra Leone, using sites including the First Church of Christ and the Deming Store as schoolrooms. Several of Farmington's abolitionist households, including the Cowles family, also served as Underground Railroad safe houses for freedom seekers escaping enslavement elsewhere in the country.